Winely, founded by Jacob Manning and Abbe Hyde, was incorporated in 2018 to develop and manufacture technology to provide real-time fermentation analysis to the wine industry.
In their first report, liquidators Andrew McKay and Rees Logan, of BDO Auckland, said the business operations were financed through external private equity investment, together with secured debt, grant funding and loans from Callaghan Innovation Funds.
Repayment of investment funds failed to occur in accordance with undertakings and earlier this year the primary funder sought an independent review of the company’s financial position.
The report indicated the company was insolvent, the remaining inventory and intellectual property had limited value and the company had effectively ceased operations.
The liquidators understood the company ceased active trading earlier this year.
Recovery action had been started against the company by one of the investors, which prompted the shareholders to resolve to place the company into liquidation.
Mr Manning and Ms Hyde were the largest shareholders, while there were multiple smaller shareholders. The couple were both directors, along with Ian Wills who was appointed in 2023.
Mr Manning and Ms Hyde were also the directors of SuchCrowd, an internet advertising service which was placed in liquidation in 2017 by shareholder resolution, two years after incorporation, citing lack of turnover.
According to the information available, Inland Revenue had a preferential claim of more than $78,000 in respect of unpaid Winely employer activities but that was yet to be confirmed.
Total unsecured liabilities were estimated at nearly $1.9m.
Creditors included Callaghan Innovation, New Zealand Growth Capital Partners and Canterbury Angels.
In October 2020, Winely closed a capital funding round of $2m. Venture capitalists from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States contributed to the seed round, which included investors from companies such as Atlassian and Canva, a media release at the time said.
Winely helped winemakers automate a traditionally labour-intensive aspect of wine production: fermentation analysis for quality control.
Traditionally, the process involved manual lab-based sampling, which was slow, laborious, inaccurate and could be a health and safety risk.
Winely used proprietary IoT-connected sensors, artificial intelligence and cloud-based software to give winemakers a more thorough and accurate picture of their wine in real-time, showing them various key metrics through a web app on their computer or other device.
Winely completed its first field trials, vintage 2019, in Central Otago. It was named by The New Zealand Herald in 2021 as “one to watch” among five local technology start-ups.
